CAG sells another of my paintings 4 '14

Great White Hunter 8" x  12" Oil

Thank you ,  Charleston Artists Guild  Gallery for finding a good home for my painting of the

 "Great White Hunter"

What are those pink flowers? 4 '14

  "What are those pink flowers?" a friend from the West coast wrote.  "They're azaleas",  I wrote back... but wait I thought... I don't know if she will believe that answer.   It's a good question to keep in mind when one is attempting to paint a scene the viewer might never have experienced. I grew up in the wide open ( but arid) spaces of the west coast myself.  A large azalea on the west coast might reach two foot tall and three foot wide.  Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I might have suspected that  the profusion of vegetation was a bit overstated  if not outright fabricated.  Let me assure you, it is neither. 

Small Part of Brookgreen Gardens' Pine forest in Spring

The sheer size of the flowering plants  in Spring can be overwhelming.  In the older established gardens, the azaleas can reach twenty feet, and the flowering trees are taller.

The photo below will give you some sense of the heights...  They dwarf me.

CC  with azaleas at Magnolia  Gardens

And they are everywhere

 Magnolia Gardens path

There are acres and acres of woodland paths and walks like these at at Magnolia Gardens and Brookgreen Gardens

Brookgreen Gardens walkway

Even personal gardens are a mass of blooms.

Azaleas and Dogwood  at Pawleys

 It can all be a bit overwhelming.  The sheer profusion makes it hard to  know what to focus upon, much less even get a clean photo of it.. Painting the scene becomes an exercise in deciding on what is the center of interest, and trying to remove anything in the scene that  might distract the viewers' focus.

Brookgreen Garden's Gate

The photo  above shows the garden gate where I painted the scene below.  ( en plein air not from the reference photo).  Far from being overstated, I actually had to subdue a lot of color and edit out  many shapes to keep the painting  from seeming cluttered and even garish.

My painting of "The Garden Gate"

 Maybe that is why so few artists tackle full blown flower filled  Spring landscapes.  They require hard mental work and  are very tricky to pull off well.

WIP Day 5: Ricefields on the Ashley 7"13

You are now looking at a photo of the finished painting: "Rice Fields on the Ashely".

"My Grocking" is done! This morning. I differentiated the bushy  foliage on the lower right of the foreground so that the willow is distinguishable form the tree behind it.  I also,  adjusted the saturation of the yellows in the middle ground (rice  fields grasses have more cad-yellows than before), and added a touch of blue to the sky just above the tree line on the horizon.  I even signed it (after I took the photo). At this point I consider the painting process complete.

The next step is to  wait until it is dry enough to have a professional photo taken of it*, then varnish and frame it,

* Note All of the photos for these mini lesson  posts were taken with a hand-held camera, under my studios ceiling lights, while the canvas was still wet..  The professional photos will  use a spots to give an even lighting over the entire painting, and a polarizing filter to ensure there is no reflective glare from those lights

See all four earlier posts of this process beginning with the post on July 16th

WIP Day 4 Foreground of Rice- fields on the Ashley 7'13

Today I finished the grasses and water in the foreground and foreground tree, widened the waterways in the middle-ground of the Rice fields so that they function more as  lines of direction in the painting.  At this point  all of the colors and values are as I want them.  You can clearly see the contribution of the red underground in the sky and the marsh.  It is what makes the sky appear purplish in the upper left corner,and the underside of the cumulus-nimbus clouds  warm ; it is also what adds the warm glow under the distant grasses in the middle ground of the rice-field. the clouds  All of this was achieved  by applying a thin glaze of color over the red ground rather than a thick layer which would cover it.

 I am still deciding whether I want to pull out the small  tree in the right lower corner more or leave it less defined.  .  That is where staring at it while it is sitting on the easel  in my living room comes in.  My husband calls this process "grocking". (Apparently that is a term used in some sci-fi book for which means "to deeply study an object  so as to fully know its nature")..  Sounds like a pretty  good description of what I will do next to me.

See all three earlier posts  in in this process beginning with the first on July 16th

WIP- Day 3 Middleground of "Ricefields on the Ashley" 7"13

Sorry about how dark this photo came out.  The foreground tree is really is very dark in value, butit also has a lot  more variation in the foliage colors than you can see in this picture.  Today I focused on correcting the values and shapes within the clouds and the  middle ground of the ricefields.  Tomorrow I will work on the foreground near the bottom of the picture,  making the sky-holes in the foreground tree a bit more realistic, and adding any finishing touches I think are needed.  
See the two  earlier posts  in in this process beginning with the first on July 16th

WIP Day 1 The beginning steps for "Ricefields on the Ashley" 7 ' 13

Remember those reference  photos  I took  when I visited Magnolia Plantation on  July 6th? 

I started working on a new painting based upon one of the photos and a quick sketch I made at the time.

This is  how I painted the first pass.  I've put down a thin wash of Golden CAD Red Acrylic Ground atop a 16" x 20" Raymar panel.  This will add warmth and sparkle to the predominately cool hues of the final painting,  Next I used some Gamblin Ultramarine Blue Sketching oils to outline the shapes.  Then I filled the tree  shape with a thin wash of Ultra-marine Blue Sketching  Oil, and the ricefields with Gamblin's Red Earth Oxide Fast Matte Oil Paint.  For the Sky shapes I used Gamblin's Fast Matte mixed with the new Gamblin Portland Cool White.  At this point I have the basic shapes and values  and temperatures roughed out.  Now I have to wait awhile before I can start adding the local color atop the value map. That shouldn't take too long as all the paints I used are either thinned or have alkyds to speed the drying process.

More to follow.

CAG at Magnolia Plantation 7' 13

Spent a wonderful day exhibiting at Magnolia Gardens History Fair with the Charleston Artists Guild

Photograghy at Margnolia Plantation and Gardens 7'13

One of the benefits of being a member of Charleston Artists Guild  is free admission to Magnolia Plantation and Gardens.  As a result, I have been there many times.  Yesterday, however was my first in mid-summer.  I was pleasantly surprised by how beautiful it is at this time of year.

When I wasn't hanging out at the CAG exhibit booth, I spent much of my free time in areas of the Plantation I had not visited before, like the Audubon Swamp Garden.

  You can get really close to the raucous juveniles and the rookery on the boardwalk through the swamp so it was not too late in the season to get some interesting bird photos.

 I also followed the bike path along the river and through the rice fields.

 The views along  that path were  spectacular as well.  Pretty sure some of these reference photos will become paintings as well